


Chambers of the Heart

by bold_seer



Category: Lackadaisy
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9299117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: Emotions were a messy business.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harvey_King](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harvey_King/gifts).



They were violent men, whether or not they carried guns. Armed even when unarmed – at a club – with a sharp tongue and sharper wits.

“What,” said Mordecai in a clipped tone. It wasn’t a question.

Viktor shrugged characteristically and drew a rather detailed (or, depending on the point of view, somewhat fuzzy) picture in the air. “He, girl. Girl, you.” As if Mordecai was now part of some triangular drama that was neither here nor there.

Certainly, there was a young couple sitting at a table: a slim, dolled up blonde who met his gaze, then looked away, and a man with a flushed face and ginger hair. He gave Mordecai a glare. But that wasn’t what Mordecai had been watching at all. Marked them both, of course, as he noted everyone in the room, but then tuned them out, barely registered them out of the corner of his eye.

There were too many people. Too much noise. And so many other things to catalogue – for necessity, for safety and their continued survival. Relationships and their inevitable complications held little interest.

“He can’t think. That I, that she -” Mordecai, so precise, so concerned with syntax and semantics, was at a loss, struggling for order and meaning. As if the very thought was incomprehensible, had rendered him speechless. And perhaps it was. Just that unfathomable.

Viktor looked like he was thinking - but who ever knows what Viktor is thinking - _He is young, he will learn perhaps._ But perhaps not, Mordecai did not seem so inclined. Or perhaps he was otherwise –

But perhaps not.

“Hmmm.” Viktor was looking at Mordecai more thoroughly than ever before, as if evaluating him for some very specific yet unrevealed purpose. The suit fit him well, he knew that, but that was hardly the point. He didn’t particularly enjoy being looked at. Viktor wasn’t supposed to be looking at him for no reason at all. He could deal with scorn or fear, always had. This?

Mordecai knew where his skills lay. He knew where they did not. Emotions were a messy business, far more so than blood and brains. He always felt out of control and on display, the way he bristled with irritation. His frowns. The quirk of an eyebrow. But he couldn’t help it, any more than the accent he tried to rein in. It revealed too much.

Looking up at Viktor was like looking into a mirror, or at an inkblot, or into a deep, deep well. A cool surface or a dim glass that revealed everything - or nothing. Nothing about Viktor, other than the fact that Viktor was, for all practical purposes, unreadable. In every sense like a wall. Everything you could see was yourself, your own reflection, your projections.

“He not so handsome,” Viktor declared, as if that explained anything. The man was _un_ handsome? Or not as handsome as - who, exactly?

But what did Viktor know, Viktor who had a great many admirable qualities, to be sure, but no taste at all in cuisine, or tailoring, or fabrics. Real, tangible things. Things that mattered. To Mordecai, anyway, who was meticulous with his food and a sharp dresser now that he could afford to be.

“I don’t follow you at all, Viktor.” And he really didn’t.


End file.
